


Homeland

by Atlanta_Black



Series: the Road to Moving On [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Getting Together, Godric's Hollow, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, M/M, Post-Hogwarts, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, Sirius Black Lives, hermione's attending muggle uni
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25738402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlanta_Black/pseuds/Atlanta_Black
Summary: Seventh year ends with a whisper so quiet that Harry finds himself still constantly looking over his shoulder, Dumbledore’s warnings ringing in his ears. Never mind that he hasn’t seen Voldemort since his first year, he still finds himself thinking that there should have been something more to his life.Hermione blames this on the whispers of old men who see danger around every corner and Ron blames it on the papers who insist on acting as if he’s supposed to save them from something that doesn’t exist. Or at least doesn’t exist in a tangible way, doesn’t exist as something he can fight. Harry blames it on the feeling of something always left incomplete. This ever persistent itch at the back of his head like there was something moremeantto happen that never did.It’s all pointless feelings that lead nowhere but he blames it as the reason that Hermione throws a suitcase down in front him and tells him to pack.“We’re going on a vacation,” she says, already moving out of his room. “Pack for a month.”
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley
Series: the Road to Moving On [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877191
Comments: 10
Kudos: 183





	Homeland

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [You Asked If I Were Happy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22008067) by [local_doom_void](https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void). 



> I would highly suggest reading local_doom_void's 'You Asked If I Were Happy' first. This is set in a remix of that universe where instead of Voldemort going on to become the Hogwarts defense professor he instead does other things. What things will be revealed if one or both of us ever gets around to writing the story that follows this one-shot. 
> 
> Needless to say, Hogwarts life goes very differently for the trio. I hope you enjoy <3

Seventh year ends with a whisper so quiet that Harry finds himself still constantly looking over his shoulder, Dumbledore’s warnings ringing in his ears. Never mind that he hasn’t seen Voldemort since his first year, he still finds himself thinking that there should have been something more to his life.

Hermione blames this on the whispers of old men who see danger around every corner and Ron blames it on the papers who insist on acting as if he’s supposed to save them from something that doesn’t exist. Or at least doesn’t exist in a tangible way, doesn’t exist as something he can fight. Harry blames it on the feeling of something always left incomplete. This ever persistent itch at the back of his head like there was something more _meant_ to happen that never did.

It’s all pointless feelings that lead nowhere but he blames it as the reason that Hermione throws a suitcase down in front him and tells him to pack.

“We’re going on a vacation,” she says, already moving out of his room. “Pack for a month.”

He blinks after her, looks at the suitcase and the still peeling wallpaper of grimmauld and shrugs. He doesn’t think to ask her where they’re going, doesn’t question the nervous glances Ron keeps throwing at him. He packs and gets on the train with them.

If there’s nothing else in the world he can trust, he trusts this. They have never led him astray and he knows they won’t start doing so now. He doesn’t ask where they’re going, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is they’re right there next to him wherever they go.

  


➳

  


Godric’s Hollow lays sprawled across the valley, quaint and small in a way that reminds him of Hogsmeade. People walk along the streets unhurriedly, stopping to chat with their neighbors, the vendors in the town square sit basking in the sun, happy and unbothered by anything other than the person directly in front of their stand.

It’s idyllic in a way that Harry can’t quite comprehend and at the edge of the town, ivy high and overgrown, sits a cottage still half charred and aching.

He stands there for a long time, staring at the house and the plaque on the outside of the stone wall. Hermione and Ron stand on either side of him, silent and present, shoulders pressed to his.

“It’s still yours,” Hermione says quietly, some time later. “I checked. It still belongs to you.”

“We thought, we could help you fix it up?” Ron says, shoulder pressing harder against his for a second.

“Yeah,” he says, choked and to his horror, tearing up. “Yeah, that sounds nice.”

The tears come then and he stands in the middle of the street, palms to his face, crying for the home and the parents he never knew. Hermione and Ron both wrap an arm around his waist and he cries. Cries for everything he lost and never had a chance to know.

“Thank you,” he says later as Hermione leads them into the inn that they’re staying at. “Thank you.”

Hermione smiles, presses a palm to his cheek. “You don’t have to thank us, Harry. We just want you to be happy.”

Ron bumps his shoulder, a hand curling around his forearm. “What she said,” he says, grinning, freckles already turned a shade darker from the time in the sun.

  


➳

  


There’s only one bed in the room that Hermione shows them to.

One gigantic bed that seems to take up half the room and erase any doubt that this was a mistake.

“‘Mione…” Ron starts, trails off, a flush on his cheeks, eyes firmly fixed on his feet, the wall, anywhere that isn’t them.

“Hermione, what are you doing?” He asks quietly, feeling sure that he already knows but needing to hear her say it.

She slams her bag onto the dresser, hands trembling visibly even from where he is. “We have been dancing around this since the end of sixth year,” she says, voice trembling. “And I am sick of it. I start classes in a month and I will not have time to worry about this once they start and if I’m wrong, I know I’m not, but if I am we can all get separate rooms but I’m not and —”

“Hermione, breath for Merlin’s sake,” Ron says, cutting her off and running a hand down his face. “Merlin…. You won’t have time,” he mutters, catching Harry’s eye. Harry bites his lip, mouth twitching.

They barely last a minute before they break down into laughter. “Why are you laughing?” Hermione cries, stamping her foot. Harry meets Ron’s eyes again and he tries to stop laughing, he really does, but they fall back into peals of laughter again. The absurdity of her reasoning just too much.

“Oh for—” he hears her mutter, right before she stomps over to Ron, shoves a hand in his hair and _oh—_

Knowing that they’ve been dancing around this has nothing on actually seeing her swallow Ron’s laughter, hand trembling where she has it clenched next to her side. Ron’s hands seem impossibly large where they’ve come up to grip her waist, shoulders hunched where he has to bend down to kiss her properly and Harry can visibly see the tension bleeding out of her shoulders.

He doesn’t realize he’s stopped breathing until his lungs start burning from the lack of air. He gasps in a breath, the sound startling them apart, lips spit slick and shining in the dim muggle lighting. Hermione blinks at him, one hand stretching for his and he doesn’t know why they waited so long honestly.

He thinks there should be some type of fear somewhere in him. Some worry about messing up their friendship but, his lips touch theirs and it feels like forever. Feels like the rest of his life curling around him, welcoming him home.

  


➳

  


Harry wakes up long before either Hermione or Ron, an old habit that he’s never managed to shake. Wakes up, slips out of bed and down to the cobblestone street, the air still damp, dew clinging to the trees.

The graveyard isn’t hard to find, the town not big enough for anything to be truly difficult to find. It’s less oppressive than he had imagined a graveyard would be. He can’t help but wonder if Sirius has ever come here and if so, why had he never brought Harry along?

If he reaches he thinks he can come to an answer, even now, not yet at their graves the grief feels too heavy, too all encompassing. It’s not something he really wishes to share with Sirius for all that it makes sense that he should want to.

Sirius, for all that he has tried, has never really understood Harry. Has never understood the way that Harry could take the knowledge that Voldemort was still out there somewhere and say, _I don’t care._ If he doesn’t come after me then, _I don’t care._

 _It won’t honor them if I get myself killed looking for a man who doesn’t want to be found,_ he had screamed at Sirius near the end of sixth year. It had been a tense summer. A pity considering how little time he actually got to spend with Sirius.

What he hadn’t said was, for all that Voldemort might not wish to be found, Harry knows he could find him. Feels the strange connection in his scar clearer with every passing year. But he’s gotten better at it ignoring it, at pretending there isn’t a strange link connecting him to Voldemort.

Their graves are near the middle, two plots of land side by side, gravestones bare. He’ll come back with flowers later when the shops open but for now he sits down in the grass, the dampness soaking his jeans, legs crossed as he stares at the words carved into the stones.

_“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”_

It sounds like nonsense, like the type of cryptic nonsense that Dumbledore had loved spouting at him in his sixth and seventh year as if it would make him want to hunt Voldemort down. As if he thought that if he just kept trying, kept repeating the same thing enough, Harry would cave and dedicate his life to a pointless cause. Sirius hadn’t much liked that reasoning either.

“If I thought he was hurting people,” he says quietly, hoping they can hear him. “If I thought he was out there murdering people, I’d go look for him but—” is it so awful to not want to start another war? To not want to risk his life over nothing?

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, just staring at their graves, trying to imagine what they would say to him now. However long it is, Hermione and Ron come find him eventually, the grass dry and the sun warm on his skin.

“They’d be proud of you,” Ron says quietly, crouching down next to him on his left.

“You think?” He asks, wishing he felt as sure of that as Ron sounded.

“Oh Harry, they’d be so proud of you,” Hermione says softly on his right before taking her wand out muttering a spell under her breath. A wreath of flowers appears in front of their gravestone, settling gently on the grass.

They sit there for a while longer before getting up and leaving, Hermione and Ron comforting pillars of strength next to him. He doesn’t think he’ll ever fill this gaping hole in his chest but he leaves the graveyard with it feeling less raw.

He leaves the graveyard feeling hopeful, like maybe Hermione and Ron are right. Maybe they really are looking down, proud of who their son has grown to be.

  


➳

  


The rest of the month passes by slowly as they methodically work their way through the house, trying to figure out what exactly they needed to fix. Which isn’t to say that’s all they do but it does take up the largest portion of their time.

“Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” He asks them one day as they sit in the front yard, dirty and exhausted. “Should I be going after him?”

“Don’t you fucking dare Harry Potter,” Hermione snaps immediately, not even looking away from the list she’s scribbling away at. “Don’t even think about it.”

“She’s right,” Ron says quietly, catching his eyes. “Trust me, I understand where Dumbledore is coming from better than either of you but she’s right. Don’t you dare.”

“I just don’t want to make a mistake,” he says softly, staring up at the sky and not meeting their eyes. “I don’t want someone to die because I was too selfish and didn’t go after him.”

They’re quiet for a moment, the only sounds are the scratching of Hermione’s pen and a cricket somewhere in the yard. The house is just far enough on the outskirts of town that they very rarely hear any noise from anyone else.

“Living your life for yourself isn’t selfish,” Hermione says eventually, setting her pen down to look at him. “If Dumbledore wants him dead then he can hunt him down himself.”

“But I could—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she snaps, cutting him off. “It does not matter. You don’t owe them anything.”

“He hasn’t turned back up, oddly enough, so it’s not as if you’re leaving people to his mercy or anything.” Ron shrugs, nudging Harry’s thigh with his foot. “Stop letting Dumbledore make you feel guilty about stuff.”

“Now, if we tear up that godawful tile in the main bathroom what should we put in its place?”

He wrinkles his nose. “It’s not that awful,” he says weakly.

“Harry,” she rolls her eyes, sighing dramatically. “I’m sure your parents were lovely people but their design tastes left something to be desired. You cannot honestly tell me you like the tile that is in there right now?”

He pictures the garish red tiles in the house and sighs in defeat. “No, no I can’t. I don’t care what we replace it with though.”

“I can understand going for Gryffindor colors in the bedroom,” Ron mutters, squinting up at the sky. “But the bathroom? It’s horrifying innit? Not even the right shade of red.”

“We’re not putting Gryffindor colors in the bedroom either,” Hermione says, rolling her eyes when they both turn to pout at her.

“How long is it going to take us to get this fixed up?” Harry asks, looking at the house again, eager for the day the right side is no longer a charred reminder of the events that occurred here.

“I’m not sure exactly but it should definitely be done by the time I’m done with uni,” Hermione says absently, staring at her list with narrowed eyes.

“We can put Gryffindor colors in the living room,” Ron says hopefully, staring at Hermione with pleading eyes.

She sighs, smiling at the look on Ron’s face. “We’ll see, we have plenty of time to decide.”

Harry has to bury his face in his hands at the happiness that threatens to bubble out of him, his heart too full for him to know what to do with.

They have time. They have years and years stretching ahead of them. Years to fix up this house, his parents house. Years to figure out what to do with their lives. Years to live their lives however they damn well please and fill this house, their house, with nothing but happiness.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Ron knocks them over, having thrown himself at Harry. Hermione joins them a second later, burying her face in his shoulder and he’s, Merlin, he’s so happy, he hopes it never ends.

  


➳

  


“What are the two of you going to do while I’m at school?” Hermione asks the next day as they sit in the cafe that’s next to their inn.

They blink at each other, neither of them having given it any thought at all.

“Uhh, well we’re going to live with you?” Ron says slowly, gesturing for Harry to say something, although Harry isn’t really sure what Ron expects him to say.

Hermione looks up from the paper she’s reading, raising one eyebrow incredulously, a move he’s sure she stole from McGonagall. “Yes, obviously, but what are you going to do? Surely you don’t plan on just sitting in our flat all day?”

There’s a strained moment of silence as they try to think of an answer that isn’t ‘yes, yes we did’.

“We could get a job?” Harry says, glancing at Ron who nods furiously in agreement.

“Yeah, a job sounds great!”

Hermione blinks, takes a slow measured sip of her coffee. “As luck would have it,” she says, smiling at them. “There’s a coffee shop near our flat that’s hiring for barista’s.”

Harry has the sinking feeling that she had planned on this from the beginning. “Let me guess,” Ron says, groaning loudly and tipping back on his chair. “Me and Harry have already applied for the jobs?”

“Harry and I,” she corrects, glaring at Ron. “And yes, yes you have. You have interviews the day after we move into the flat.”

“Er, and this is… a muggle coffee shop?” he asks, holding his cup tightly and wondering if she’s really thought this through.

She nods once, eyeing him expectantly.

“Can we even work in a muggle coffee shop? Don’t we need muggle papers for that?”

She bites her lip, glancing around nervously. “Well yes… I took the liberty of umm…. Well, I made you both papers and backstories as well since you can’t very well explain the real reason the both of you are going to be hopeless at understanding the muggle world.”

He sputters, ignoring the fact that she basically just admitted to forgery, compared to some of the other stuff they’ve done that’s barely anything at all. “I understand the muggle world,” he hisses. “I grew up in it!”

She shoots a flat look at him, setting her cup down with a clink. “And when was the last time you were in the muggle world, Harry?”

He opens his mouth to answer and pauses, closes his mouth, mentally shuffles back through the years and then slumps in his chair crossing his arms.

Ron chews thoughtfully on his cinnamon roll, fingers drumming on the table. “A muggle coffee shop…” he says bemusedly, looking as if he can’t decide on how to feel about this. “Will we get free pastries if we work there?”

Hermione rolls her eyes. “I don’t know, maybe. You’ll have to ask the owner.”

Ron beams at her, looking as pleased as if he’s already been given a definite yes. “Free pastries mate,” he whispers, nudging Harry in the side.

He snorts, staring out the window, watching the stall owners setting up and chattering as they work. The flower stall is already open. He thinks he’ll buy some and go talk to his parents again. They’ve only got a week left before they head to their new flat in the city so Hermione can attend orientation.

“You don’t have to of course,” Hermione blurts suddenly, breaking the silence that had fallen. She’s biting her lip anxiously when he looks up.

“Don’t have to... what?”

“You don’t have to work at a muggle shop, I should have asked first.”

“Don’t do that,” he says quietly, reaching for her hand. “You know we would have just sat in the flat for ages doing nothing before we thought to find a job.”

Ron snorts, nodding. “Yeah, never would have thought to find a job in a muggle shop. And if we hate it we can always quit.” Ron shrugs, reaching over the table to tug at her hair. “You’ve been bossing us around for seven years, don’t go stopping now.”

She laughs, squeezing Harry’s hand, before going back to her paper, a smile still lingering on her lips.

Ron slings an arm around Harry’s shoulder, tipping his head back towards the sun and for the first time since he’s graduated he thinks that maybe they’re finally on the right track. Living by no one’s rules but their own.

“Did the new arithmancy journal come in yet?” He asks after another moment of idly looking out the window.

“I still cannot believe you actually enjoy reading those,” Ron snorts, getting up and stretching. “I’m going on a walk, you two bookworms enjoy yourselves.” He laughs again, likely at the disgruntled face Harry is making, presses a kiss to the top of Hermione’s head and ruffles Harry’s hair on the way out.

“TM wrote a long article this month, it takes up five pages.” She pushes the journal across the table, glaring at something in the paper. “He was in a right snit about the rebuttal to his previous article.”

“I don’t know why anyone bothers arguin’ with him anymore,” he laughs. “He always ends up being right.”

She shrugs and he settles down in his seat, flipping to the dog eared page and tangling his feet with Hermione’s.

  


➳

  


Later, when they’ve all climbed into bed, he finds himself thinking the same thing once again. This is it, this is the right path. He knows that Dumbledore considers him a traitor to the wizarding world, although he would never say that to Harry’s face. Sirius, for all that he’s trying, still can’t quite get rid of the resentment he holds over Harry not trying to find Voldemort. The wizarding world at large would probably never welcome him back again if they knew but this is it, this is the right path.

Hermione’s hair is tickling his nose and Ron’s fingers are curled around his wrist, thumb on his pulse point, his own lips are pressed to the back of Hermione’s neck. Whichever path keeps the two of them close to him is the right path.

Whichever path keeps them safe and happy and together is the one he will _always_ choose.

Once upon a time, a little boy with knobby knees, wearing a shirt three times too large, had stared up at Hogwarts and whispered _home, home, home._ He had thought for such a long time that Hogwarts was home, was the only home he would ever truly know.

They’ve been in Godric’s Hollow for nearly a month and he’s barely missed Hogwarts at all. His home is wherever they are. They are his right path, his homeland, his forever.

He won’t ever let himself regret that.

  


➳

  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Where the Heart Is](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25869280) by [local_doom_void](https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void)




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